The project transforms the bakery into a two floor house distributing the social spaces on the groundfloor and the private spaces on the upperfloor. There is a mid level between the two floors to open a small pátio that brings light to the client’s musical studio.

The social space on the ground floor – living room and kitchen – is fisically divided, and visually United, by a piece of furniture that works simultaneously as a Bookshelf and a cupboard, as it can be accessed through it’s glass sliding frames from both sides. So you can have books in one shelf and ktichen stuff in another. It also filters light in a very subtle way.

The kitchen is a very extroverted space, and it can extend outdoors to the street, letting you enjoy the neighbourhood spirit and popular life with a glaass of wine in hand while dinner is being cooked.

There is also a very nice and quiet varanda that the sun likes to visit. It opens to the neighbours backyards and takes you to a very confortable place. A place about identity, culture and the history of Porto.

Situated at the corner of 4th Avenue and 1st Street in the coveted Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, 251 1st by ODA New York is the firm’s latest manifestation of its steadfast commitment to improving quality of life in urban areas. In this case—taking a page from its well-documented playbook—ODA’s inflected the building’s upper massing with a cascade of setbacks and terraces, yielding substantial outdoor space, as well as multiple exposures for units.

In addition to light and outdoor area, playing with the massing in this way also provides a sensitive contextual nod: A more formal, closed exterior on bustling 4th Avenue—suitable for the major commercial artery—gives way to the porous push and pull of the terracing along 1st Street, design language meant to mimic the small scale of area brownstones and to engage with 1st’s intimate, more residential quality.

In this interaction between disparate exterior elements, 251 1st also references an abstract undercurrent—the generational and cultural shift, as Brooklyn, a once sleepy, largely residential outer borough, continues its transformation into one of NYC’s great cultural epicenters. In other words, both legs of Brooklyn’s changing identity receive expression on the exterior of 251 1st.

Inside, ODA’s design is conceived as a kind of urban oasis. While the clean lines and unabashed geometry of the contemporary canon are prominent on the exterior, the lobby—open planned, full-floored and attended 24 hours (via doorman and virtual concierge)—has a softer, distinctly natural, almost zen-like aura, with a strong emphasis on materials: a rich medley of woods, concrete, and metals. In the lobby’s lounge areas, living green wall receive ample light through transparent front and rear glass.

And, as ODA residents have come to expect, the building features a generous slew of amenities, from the familiar—two sun-soaked courtyards, a landscaped terrace—to the luxuriantly unexpected: an entry floor library, stroller valet, fitness/yoga room, and even a pet grooming station, among others.

“251 1st street allowed us to give a new dimension to the idea of humanizing the façade, and in the process, pose a simple question: what exactly is a building façade? Is it simply an aesthetic mask, or is it an integral part of the life and experience of the building? How distinct should the differences be between inside and out, private and communal, between the building and the street life below? Situated on the corner of 1st street, an intimate tree lined stretch of brownstones, and the commercial post-industrialized 4th Ave, this building integrates both aspects of density and community. Standing higher than the neighboring buildings permits sweeping views of Manhattan, both through expansive windows and from wide outdoor gardens, while still maintaining the feel of a small town community.

With its formal enclosed face along 4th Ave giving way to a highly fragmented facade along 1st street, the building also introduces an alternative for residential corner buildings to engage with both the commercial avenue and residential street.

And at the end of the day, for us, that is what Architecture is. A vehicle with which we can seek new ways to improve peoples lives, not just those who call our buildings home but for the surrounding community as well.”

Twilio is a publicly traded cloud communications company that gives businesses the ability to innovate, prototype, create, and connect with their customers through real-time communication and authentication capabilities. The company’s core values are rooted in the belief that the biggest problems can be solved by challenging assumptions and pursuing honest, direct, transparent solutions. In an effort to accommodate a rapidly expanding staff and need for additional space, Twilio relocated its San Francisco headquarters to a 90,000 SF space split over two floors in a multi-tenant building. The goal was to reflect the company’s culture of efficiency and simplicity by creating a space that used easily accessible standard construction materials in innovative ways to control costs and contribute to the company’s humble culture and fundamental ethos.

Blitz explored these solutions through a “simplicity by subtraction” design approach. The design team made a concentrated effort to remove materials, such as finish drywall, and replaced them with unconventional materials to create a space that is economical, interesting, and uniquely Twilio.

The subtraction concept is best seen in the design of semi-enclosed collaborative spaces playfully called “un-rooms.” The “un-room” spaces were designed without doors and ceilings and constructed from standard metal framing clad in low cost materials like polycarbonate plastic and oriented stand board (OSB) painted in Twilio’s brand colors. This innovative and efficient solution combines pops of color with multiple textures and patterns while creating separation for staff having informal breakouts or independent work.

Inspired by Twilio’s original desks, which were DIY solutions crafted out of doors and 2×4 lumber found at local hardware stores, the design team worked closely with the furniture vendor to create a custom sit-to-stand workstation that utilized a height-adjustable base with a wooden door top. These unique solutions made a playful reference to the Twilio company history while providing a more streamlined solution that responds to the need for future growth and flexibility.

A primary focal point of the office is the large pantry and cafe space located directly adjacent to the main entry. The event space is highly flexible allowing for weekly all-hands meetings, team “family dinner” nights, and for the convenient hosting of regular events for the local developer community. The space features a state of the art integrated Audio/Visual system with 30 sub woofers that can be used for conference presentations and the occasional Twilio hack-a-thon.

Another design challenge was creating a bright and open reception area that would allow natural daylight to penetrate through but also comply with Twilio’s security needs to make the area private and separate from the workstations. The solution was to add glass walls on both sides of the adjacent board room that allow natural light to flow in from nearby exterior windows. Additionally, custom OSB wall paneling and the reception desk create a balance of raw and exposed materials with the company’s signature red color. The custom reception desk is also dual-purpose as it becomes a hospitality station when Twilio holds company events in the reception area.

An award-winning Salt & Water studio presents the project of a family home planned for construction in Ruma, Serbia. Both the main building and the two additional objects on the lot were designed according to the energy efficiency parameters (B category). Respecting the basic parameters of the location, the house is oriented towards the south with the large glass surfaces on its front side. Windows and glass doors have triple glazing that provides the minimal heat loss (Alumil S650). The heating is produced by the geothermal heat pumps that use electricity and the earth’s thermal energy for an ecological heating system.

Upon our client’s request, the façade to the street is completely closed. The house will be built with the natural materials like stone and the Wienerberger Porotherm W.i. Plan 38 cm blocks with the built-in stone wool, so the extra insulation on the external façade won’t be needed. Additional objects on the lot are a spacious garage and a summer kitchen to fit the needs of an extended family, with a kitchen, dining room and storage. In front of the house, right before the living room is a place to sit and rest. This open area is covered with an automated folding shade. At several positions on the façade of the main and auxiliary facilities, there is also a garden lighting with sensors that register the movement.

The interior is decorated in a modern style and reflects luxury and comfort. The central room in the house is one spacious area that includes a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and leads to the tiny garden area outside. In addition to the central space, on the ground floor is an entrance hall, a training room, a bedroom with a spacious dressing room and a bathroom, a toilet, a pantry and a laundry room. A stairway that leads to the first floor is partly covered with decorative surfaces. With subtle lighting it makes a lovely lounge zone fitted with luxurious furniture. Set on the first floor is a master bedroom with a large bathroom and a walk-in closet, three bedrooms for the extended family members, a bathroom, and an extra storage room.

Materials used are mostly natural, with plenty of stone. Colors of the interior are bright and elegant. Valpaint colors are used for a special wall decoration, altogether with a luxury wallpaper by the Belgian brand Omexco. Special features of this interior are the custom-made furniture elements. They include wooden wall cladding with a floral silver ball in the master bedroom, a decorative stone wall in the hallway behind the kitchen, a coffee table stand in a living room and others.

Salt & Water is a young design team and a winner of several prestigious awards in the field of yacht and aviation design. Among their most significant awards are the Millennium Yacht Design Award (MYDA 2015) for the Floating Hotel with Catamaran Apartments project, as well as the International Yacht & Aviation Award 2014 for the best interior design of the private plane Boeing 787 VIP Dreamliner.

For the past six years, Salt & Water team has successfully combined the extensive practical knowledge in all mentioned fields to numerous projects. In all their endeavors, they strive to create designs that are highly practical, innovative, daring and stylistically impeccable.

The municipal authority in Houten (Netherlands) commisssioned the Samyn and Partners practice to build a small fire station on a site surrounded by lots of green space. The municipality of Houten has a hybrid fire fighting force : four professional firefighters, and around sixty volunteers. The building agenda set a requirement that there should be space to accommodate six fire engines.

The theme in drawing up the design is the radical division of the roof structure from the internal organization. It represents the idea of the shelter, the independence of the shell from the building itself. The building’s interior is in keeping with the client’s requirements.

The choice of a parabolic form for the roof is the result of the search for elegance of form, and also brings about an optimization of the structure. The fast method of construction was a further significant factor favouring this choice at the fundamental design stage.

There is a two-way split of the interior. The south side has been conceived as a completely transparent space in which just glass has been used. Here, the firefighting equipement is kept in what resembles a large shop window. This barely heated hall is intended to serve as a climatic buffer zone, both in winter and in summer. All the other functions have been gathered together in the northern half of the building, a construction built of loadbearing brickwork. From the open corridors, there is a view onto the fire engines.

The ground floor houses showers, changing rooms and the sanitary provisions as well as storage rooms for mechanical equipment. A conference room and a cafeteria for the firefighters are situated on the first floor. The office spaces are located on the second floor with storage rooms for technical equipment on top.

In this socially problematic area of the city, it was asked to the 2200 five to seven years old schoolboys and schoolgirls of the 22 schools of the city to represent the epic of the firemen on DIN A3 – size panels.

The 2200 panels, changing colour as a flame from dark blue at the bottom over green an yellow to orange at the top, were laid out on the main brick wall of the Fire Station, renamed “house of the firemen”. It resulted into a magnificent hieroglyph-like composition protected by the glazed façade. The project gathered all the families of Houten, so that an emotional link was woven between the population and the building. In this way, the “house” is protected from the vandalism it was likely to suffer before that, in each family, a little brother or a little sister’s piece of artwork was integrated in the work.

The glazed façade incorporates large overhead gates designed to allow the firefighting force to make a quick operational exit. The building’s length runs in an eastwest direction which allows the southern façade to incorporate photovoltaic cells. The fire station’s overall form appears as a modern variant on the traditional theme of the shed.

La Calma House is placed in a small town near Barcelona. Its plot is located in a forest area with a very steep slope and an abundance of pine, oak and olive trees. A natural park in front of the plot and the low building density of the area enhance the connection of the house with its natural surroundings.

La Calma House has been thought as a shelter for its owners, a place where they can withdraw from the hustle and bustle of the city and its hectic daily life. Because of this, the house has massive, heavy external walls that serve as a protective shell, closed to the access road and the neighbouring houses and opened to the slope and the forest.

Each opening on the concrete skin has been designed to frame a specific view in the plot from a different room. However, in the façade facing the slope nature burst into the core of the house and takes centre stage.

Due to the steepness of the slope and the constraining regulation, we have designed a compact house so most of the area of the plot has been left for the garden. In order to suit the slope better, the house volume has been fragmented. With the same aim, several terraces have been designed for the outdoor facilities such as the pool, the barbecue area, the play area and the different gardens.

The materials chosen are intended to integrate the house in the landscape. The concrete wall has an off-white colour, similar to the local stone. The wood and the corten steel outside the house recall the trees’ trunks. Inside, the wood is lighter so it brings clearness and warmth into the house.

The trees surround the house in a random, organic way, as if the forest had spread into the plot.

La Calma House has two levels. The day rooms are on the ground floor, fluidly organised, visually connected although they can be divided if needed. The double-height living room is dominated by a large bookcase and separated from the dining room by a double-sided fireplace. The bedrooms are on the first floor, where the sunlight and the views are controlled by sliding louvered shutters.

The Mororó House is in a mountainous region, 180 km from the city of São Paulo, known for its low temperatures. The architecture sought to create generous internal spaces for the cold days, such as, for example, a cozy living room and an enclosed bathhouse with a pool, where the views can be appreciated while being protected by a skin of glass.

Externally, the same continuous volume creates a duality between an opaque block – where the living room, bedrooms and service areas are – and the transparent stretch of the heated pool and sauna. The volumetry of the house was given by a sixty-five meters extrusion of an icon-house, with pitched roof. Furthermore, an external wooden deck connects the spaces and creates a solarium to be used during the summer months.

In the opaque part of the volume, which is 50m long, the openings were minimized and used as sliding doors to intensify the integration between inside and out. This relation between empty and full in the façade allows for an excellent thermal performance, with a high degree of electric energy conservation. The transparent stretch is fourteen meters long and the internal ventilation was spatially designed to avoid condensation on the glass by the heated pool, which would harm the relation with the view.

The house was not situated on the top of a rugged site, as initially desired by the clients, but in its lowest part – in the midst of a beautiful forest of pine trees. This solution allowed the building to be surrounded by nature, creating an intimate relation with the site.

The initial premise of the project was to have a quick and cheap construction. Therefore, the architecture found industrialized solutions such as metal structures and steelframe walls. The site, despite high rainfall, remained always clean. Unlike the Brazilian constructive culture, few elements were made entirely on site, but instead mounted or assembled there. The time to build this house was less than the usual, even with the site’s difficult access.

The choice of the materials for the interiors, such as wood, made it a cozy house, like the traditional chalets in the mountains. Following the desires of the future residents, the kitchen could be integrated to the spaces via wooden sliding doors – that could be entirely opened. Thus, it was not only possible to design ample and continuous spaces on the inside, but also to have central spaces for the quotidian life which organized the house plan.

Tech901, a nonprofit organization, trains new tech workers to take on the diverse challenges of the IT industry and provide growth resources for local employers. They required a new space for collaboration, capable of adapting to serve multiple functions related to the information technology industry.

A dynamic collaboration zone established the design concept. This zone is made up of a long poured-in-place concrete table with power and data capability embedded into 40’ long six inch strip of walnut. A contrasting homasote wall surface helps to separate this collaborative space from the lounge spaces, and works to achieve optimal acoustics for discussion and concentration. A linear light overhead lines up with the power and data slots, as well as with the power nine logo at entrance. This space accommodates break out spaces for students to use between classes, offers space for temporary workstations, a surface for tech start-up company meetings and acts as a serving table for public events.

Extending the design emphasis on collaboration, a conference room doubles as small training, testing or war room. Glazing is used to partition smaller offices to achieve openness and light to pass through the space. 42” high film allows partial privacy and effectiveness in the office spaces. Walls with marker board paint surround informal meeting places, and a tectum bridge was developed to mask exposed mechanical and electrical systems nonprofit’s unique new home, a recently renovated Sears distribution facility that was vacant for 20 years.

The final construction cost is $702,997 or $143/sf. The total building area is 4,930 sf. Consultants for the project included OGCB for engineering and Pro Tec Fire Systems Inc. for Fire Protection. Grinder Taber & Grinder, Inc. was the general contractor for this project. All photos by Hank Mardukas Photography.

“Suzana only thinks of the house, she is in love with it”. Suzana’s ex-husband cannot get it out of his mind that the new house – conceived by them both – meant the end of his marriage. The ex-husband’s jealous looks are meant for nobody else other than the straight and modern lines, “cold, tedious and without life”. While images pass through the architecture he distills his fear of the construction and elaborates about the new life that Suzana will be enjoying at that place. “Where is Suzana now?” She couldn’t be in any other place except that house, where Suzana’s love is so transparent.

For a leading IT company active in the food sector, i29 interior architects realized the interior design of a newly built office building by Bedaux de Brouwer Architects. Schouw Informatisering is a full-service IT partner for food companies, hosting a broad service of ERP related services. An internationally operating organization with over 150 employees with a passion for food and IT.

Hosting training courses for their customers and an in-house trainee program, the floor plan asked for a layout with lot’s of meeting space and presentation rooms combined with working places in an open office environment. The theme for the interior was inspired by the company identity; a fresh and professional identity, as well as engagement with their clients and their own employees, creating an environment for ‘growth’.

To create different areas within the 2500 m2 work floor, i29 implemented workplaces in different tones of green and blue. Bold colored patterns in flooring are combined in matching colors and materials in the office furniture and acoustic wall panels.

To create optimal acoustic performance, large photographs are printed on soft acoustic walls which are also dividing the space. As a reference to the food industry, the images show agriculture aerial photos. The colorful images are in contrast to the stark white metal climate ceiling and walls covered with whiteboard panels.

In the middle of each office floor, a central hub is created including a coffee bar, pantry, printing room and meeting area to improve social interaction of the employees. A small office restaurant in fresh blue tones fluidly blends with the office environment and is also to be used for quick meetings. A large void with hanging plants above the entrance connects the ground floor with the first floor where the restaurant is situated.

The client’s high ambition on sustainability and the well being of his employees resulted in a office with maximum comfort and integration of the latest technology in lighting and climate control. In total nine large plant walls are spread through the office space. Thousands of plants provide oxygen and humidity to improve the air quality as well as contributing to the superb acoustics. They also refer to the design theme, intuitively referring to health, freshness and nature.